While many high-profile companies are offering employees money for abortion tourism in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, a Texas-based insurance company is taking the opposite approach by allocating funds to new parents instead.
Buffer Insurance, a small company headquartered in Southlake, Texas, took a stand for both biological and adoptive parents and mentioned the Supreme Court decision when they announced the new initiative on Facebook.
They shared:
How Buffer responds to Roe v. Wade: Buffer will pay the medical costs for our employees who birth babies [and] provide paid time off for employees to have maternity & paternity leave. Buffer will pay for the medical costs associated with adopting a baby.
The post continued, “Employers: If you’d like to learn how you can provide these benefits to your employees, let us know. We have ready-to-use policies you can add to your employee handbooks. #Impact #WorthProtecting #BeThere #BufferInsurance #Buffer #RoeVWade #Employeehandbooks #OurChildrenAreWorthProtecting.”
As of September 2021, abortion is illegal in Texas once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, thanks to the Texas Heartbeat Act, which essentially eliminates abortion after six weeks. Before it went into effect, elective abortions were allowed up to 20 weeks gestation in the state.
Buffer Insurance’s approach stands in stark contrast to companies including Apple, Uber, Amazon, Citigroup, CVS Health, JP Morgan, Meta (Facebook), Tesla, Paramount, Patagonia, Microsoft, Paypal, Starbucks, and Disney, just to name a few. They’ve all publicly committed to paying for employees and their dependents to travel to different states to get abortions if necessary.
Dick’s Sporting Goods was one of the first companies to announce this type of policy, with CEO Lauren Hobart saying that the company is “prepared to ensure that all of our teammates have consistent and safe access to the benefits we provide, regardless of the state in which they live,” The Daily Wire originally reported.
“In response to today’s ruling, we are announcing that if a state one of our teammates lives in restricts access to abortion, DICK’S Sporting Goods will provide up to $4,000 in travel expense reimbursement to travel to the nearest location where that care is legally available,” she shared. “This benefit will be provided to any teammate, spouse or dependent enrolled in our medical plan, along with one support person.”
Liberals are scrambling now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, which will mean individual states will have the power to enact their own abortion laws.
In May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested that companies should fund abortion travel because it’s “the first time the court has taken back a freedom that was defined by precedent and respect for privacy.”
Many companies are bowing to pressure from activists and employees, but some smaller operations such as Buffer Insurance are revising their benefits to provide more money for prospective parents rather than encouraging them to kill their offspring and get back to work.
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